Microsoft Edge at Build 2017

Last week, Microsoft welcomed thousands of developers from around the world to Build 2017, where we shared our vision for the future of dozens of products and services. Build featured a number of exciting sessions for developers building sites and apps with web technologies, including a peek at what’s coming to the web platform beginning with EdgeHTML 16 the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update.

In this post, you’ll find a quick review of the web developer sessions at Build 2017. If you see something you’d like to learn more about, dive into the recording to get all the details!

What’s new and what’s next for the web on Windows

In this session, Kyle Pflug and Nadia Fortini take you on a whirlwind tour of what’s new in Microsoft Edge in EdgeHTML 15, and share a roadmap for our priorities in upcoming releases of Microsoft Edge.

You’ll learn about new features like Payment Request for standardized checkout experiences, WebVR for immersive mixed reality experiences built with immersive web technologies, and dramatically improved responsiveness and battery life. We also cover upcoming APIs in development for future releases, including an updated CSS Grid implementation, Service Worker and other features that enable Progressive Web Apps, and much more.

This session also shows an early look at upcoming changes to the design and personality of Microsoft Edge, as the new Fluent Design System begins to make to the browser beginning with the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. Fluent Design brings depth, motion, and personality to the controls and browser frame in Microsoft Edge, allowing elements of the page and background to influence the color of the browser window.

Progressive Web Apps on Windows

In this session, Aaron Gustafson introduces Progressive Web Apps, a new vision for the future of web apps enabled by groundbreaking technologies like Service Worker, which will be coming to preview builds of Microsoft Edge for developer testing this summer.

You’ll learn how Progressive Web Apps enable world-class, cross-platform, native-like apps, build on web technologies and hosted on your own server. PWAs can work offline, update content in the background even when the browser or the app is closed, and intercept network requests to update content from a cache when the network is unavailable.

This session details how we will a first-class web app ecosystem on Windows by ingesting high-quality PWAs from across the internet, and making it easy for developers to participate in the Windows Store alongside native apps with no extra effort, using tools like Web App Manifests and PWABuilder.

WebVR: Immersive Mixed Reality powered by web technologies

In this session, David Rousset and Etienne Margraff describe how EdgeHTML 15 on the Windows 10 Creators Update enables any web developer to build an immersive mixed reality experience with Microsoft Edge, Windows Mixed Reality, and the WebVR 1.1 API.

Better checkout experiences with the Payment Request API

In this session, Molly Dalton, Stan Change, and Jonathan Cutler provide an in-depth look at the new Payment Request API, which allows you to build standardized, cross-browser checkout experiences on the web and in apps. Payment Request dramatically simplifies checkout by leveraging a payment app – in this case, the browser – to store and provide payment and shipping details, so your customers can enjoy less friction and a more delightful user experience.

Payment Request works in EdgeHTML 15 as well as in UWP apps, apps packaged with the Desktop Bridge, and the Microsoft Bot Framework, allowing you to build a faster and easier checkout experience across a variety of devices and platforms.

What’s new in ChakraCore

In this session, Brian Terlson gives an overview of what’s new in Chakra – the open-source JavaScript engine that powers Microsoft Edge and Windows 10.

You’ll learn about the near-native performance enabled by experimental WebAssembly support in Microsoft Edge, and exciting new emerging tools like Time Travel Debugging. You’ll also learn about Chakra’s journey to other operating systems, and the work we’ve been doing with the Node.js core project to help solve key problems like providing a stable Node API for native module developers.

Get started today

Many of these new APIs – including WebVR 1.1, Payment Request, CSS Custom Properties, and more – are available and on by default in Microsoft Edge on the Windows 10 Creators Update, which is available now. To get started with experimental features like WebAssembly, you can simply navigate to about:flags in Microsoft Edge.

To make it as easy as possible to get started, we’ve partnered with BrowserStack to provide instant, free testing of Microsoft Edge from any device. You can test the latest stable and preview releases of Microsoft Edge, and even test localhost or using WebDriver.

We look forward to sharing more about upcoming features soon as they make their way to the Windows Insider Program. In the meantime, check out the Build sessions, and let us know what you think!